Native Messaging: Launch and Communicate with Any Application from Your Browser
summary
Native Messaging describes how browser extensions can launch and communicate with native executables over stdio using two APIs: connectNative/Port for long‑lived connections with postMessage/disconnect, and sendNativeMessage for one‑shot JSON UTF‑8 exchanges. The setup requires a per‑OS/browser app manifest (Windows uses a registry key to point to it), explicit extension whitelisting, and a native program that reads/writes length‑prefixed JSON; note Chrome Web Store validation and stdio limits as important constraints.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00Native Messaging intro
- 1:03Browser support history
- 3:28How it works and use cases
- 4:55Key config files
- 7:23Online vs offline modes
- 9:55OS and browser differences
- 12:05Main limitations
- 14:34Native Messaging alternatives
- 15:16Conclusion and demo
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